Verdict postponed in climate change damage case between TotalEnergies and farmer

A Belgian court on Wednesday postponed judgment on a case pitting French oil giant TotalEnergies against a farmer seeking compensation for damage to his land caused by climate change.

Hugues Falys, from Hainaut in western Belgium, took TotalEnergies to court on the grounds that the French group is Belgium's leading refiner and distributor of petroleum products.

Falys, who is supported by activist groups including Greenpeace and food rights organisation FIAN, says the firm can be held liable for global warming because of emissions generated when its products are burned - a claim rejected by TotalEnergies which accuses pressure groups of "instrumentalising the judiciary."

The lawsuit was filed in 2024 before the Tournai business court in western Belgium. Lawyers for both sides presented their cases during hearings between November 2025 and January 2026.

The court was due to give its verdict on Wednesday but delayed its decision until September.

"The judges have everything they need to make the right decision," Falys told the French news agency AFP on the eve of Wednesday's hearing.

"But it won't be black and white, given the number of issues to be decided," he added.

Falys is seeking €130,000 euros in damages for four extreme weather events that struck his farm between 2016 and 2020.

First a storm destroyed his strawberry and potato crops, then three periods of drought hurt fodder production, affecting cattle in turn.

But the farmer and his backers are also seeking much broader action from TotalEnergies on countering climate change - notably for TotalEnergies to stop investing in new fossil-fuel projects.

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The goals of the lawsuit are "reparation and transformation", said Belgium's human rights league, which is also backing the complaint.

Lawyers for TotalEnergies told the court that it was absurd to single out a particular firm over the pace of the transition to different forms of energy. They said the company accounts for less than 2 percent of the oil and gas sector.

"It's a bit easy to blame energy producers for pollution and warming," said company lawyer Françoise Labrousse during a hearing in December.

"TotalEnergies doesn't sell tractors, cars or boilers," she added.

She told the court that the group's strategy to meet the EU's goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 was ambitious and effective.